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A Splendid Intelligence: The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick
The first biography of the extraordinary essayist, critic, and short story writer Elizabeth Hardwick, author of the semiautobiographical novel Sleepless Nights . Born in Kentucky, Elizabeth Hardwick left for New York City on a Greyhound bus in 1939 and quickly made a name for herself as a formidable member of the intellectual elite. Her eventful life included stretches of dire poverty, romantic escapades, and dustups with authors she eviscerated in The New York Review of Books , of which she was a cofounder. She formed lasting friendships with literary notables―including Mary McCarthy, Adrienne Rich, and Susan Sontag―who appreciated her sharp wit and relish for gossip, progressive politics, and great literature. Hardwick’s life and writing were shaped by a turbulent marriage to the poet Robert Lowell, whom she adored, standing by faithfully through his episodes of bipolar illness. Lowell’s decision to publish excerpts from her private letters in The Dolphin greatly distressed Hardwick and ignited a major literary controversy. Hardwick emerged from the scandal with the clarity and wisdom that illuminate her brilliant work―most notably Sleepless Nights , a daring, lyrical, and keenly perceptive collage of reflections and glimpses of people encountered as they stumble through lives of deprivation or privilege. A Splendid Intelligence finally gives Hardwick her due as one of the great postwar cultural critics. Ranging over a broad territory―from the depiction of women in classic novels to the civil rights movement, from theater in New York to life in Brazil, Kentucky, and Maine―Hardwick’s essays remain strikingly original, fiercely opinionated, and exquisitely wrought. In this lively and illuminating biography, Cathy Curtis offers an intimate portrait of an exceptional woman who vigorously forged her own identity on and off the page. 12 illustrations
400 pages, Hardcover
Published November 16, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 2, 2022
Elizabeth Hardwick used a long residency in New York City and a lifetime of writing for national publications in establishing herself as one of our more prominent public intellectuals and cultural critics. She's best known today as an essayist but also wrote novels as well as teaching and being one of the founding members of The New York Review of Books. Her literary criticism was admired and sought after. Her voice in literary New York and international forums was considered influential. She knew everybody in the writing business but was especially close to Mary McCarthy, Adrienne Rich, Susan Sontag, and Elizabeth Bishop. The stories of their friendships is rich with anecdote and insight. And, of course, she was the wife of the poet Robert Lowell.
I suppose it's understandable that so much of Hardwick's story is entwined with Lowell's. In the harbor of American letters he was one of the bigger vessels, and he made big waves. But the Hardwick/Lowell saga is a familiar one, told many times by now through Lowell biographies, collected letters, and critiques of The Dolphin, his controversial volume of poetry about their estrangement. I was hoping to be told more about the Hardwick separate from Lowell, but Cathy Curtis seemingly found it difficult to pry her away from him. The last 30 years of her life, after his death, are covered in almost as many pages. And then the biography reads like a catalog of where she was and what she did. Curtis is conscientious in extracting the key pints from what she wrote during those years, but she doesn't go very deep into telling us who she was. Beyond such surface qualities as being a good cook and liking opera we don't learn what her real joys were, why people liked her, and almost nothing about her inner life.
To be fair, I think Curtis's information was limited. An author's note reading like a disclaimer tells us Harriet, the daughter of Elizabeth and Robert, is "a very private person." The implication is that Harriet, who'll be 65 on 4 January, didn't cooperate with Curtis, and without her providing detail and insight the biography slumps into inadequacy. We're told that Hardwick loved gossip and was often judgmental. Harriet knows a lot she won't tell. But, then, we also learn that Hardwick herself was no fan of biographies leading Harriet to serve as a shield. Perhaps I'm placing too much of the biography's weight on Harriet's shoulders. My own view is simply that family members should feel more responsibility in insuring the biography is the one the subject deserves.
At year's end I like to study various compilations listing what are considered the best books of the year. This year I came across a list in which critics were asked which books most disappointed them. A Splendid Intelligence was mentioned by one critic as a biography from which they expected more. So did I.
I suppose it's understandable that so much of Hardwick's story is entwined with Lowell's. In the harbor of American letters he was one of the bigger vessels, and he made big waves. But the Hardwick/Lowell saga is a familiar one, told many times by now through Lowell biographies, collected letters, and critiques of The Dolphin, his controversial volume of poetry about their estrangement. I was hoping to be told more about the Hardwick separate from Lowell, but Cathy Curtis seemingly found it difficult to pry her away from him. The last 30 years of her life, after his death, are covered in almost as many pages. And then the biography reads like a catalog of where she was and what she did. Curtis is conscientious in extracting the key pints from what she wrote during those years, but she doesn't go very deep into telling us who she was. Beyond such surface qualities as being a good cook and liking opera we don't learn what her real joys were, why people liked her, and almost nothing about her inner life.
To be fair, I think Curtis's information was limited. An author's note reading like a disclaimer tells us Harriet, the daughter of Elizabeth and Robert, is "a very private person." The implication is that Harriet, who'll be 65 on 4 January, didn't cooperate with Curtis, and without her providing detail and insight the biography slumps into inadequacy. We're told that Hardwick loved gossip and was often judgmental. Harriet knows a lot she won't tell. But, then, we also learn that Hardwick herself was no fan of biographies leading Harriet to serve as a shield. Perhaps I'm placing too much of the biography's weight on Harriet's shoulders. My own view is simply that family members should feel more responsibility in insuring the biography is the one the subject deserves.
At year's end I like to study various compilations listing what are considered the best books of the year. This year I came across a list in which critics were asked which books most disappointed them. A Splendid Intelligence was mentioned by one critic as a biography from which they expected more. So did I.
August 6, 2025
An excellent biography of an excellent writer who deserves more attention. The NYRB Hardwick books (novel and essays) are also wonderful.
February 16, 2022
Ach what a disappointment! I’ve been looking forward to this biography so much, since before it was published. Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights is one of my favorite books ever, a fictionalized memoir of her life in New York in the 40’s, where she hung with Billie Holiday, Robert Lowell, etc. Just a glorious book. But this new bio just quotes from Sleepless Nights in, like, every other sentence. Literally. Every other sentence. Why read a bio when you’ve ALREADY READ Sleepless Nights? Elizabth said this, Elzabeth saidcthat. Yack. I’ve already read Elizabeth’s work. I bailed after two chapters.
November 3, 2021
It’s been a while since I’ve read Hardwick but this biography is steeped in quotations from her work which served as both a reminder and an irritant. Rather than a lively account of an intellectual life I found this to be more of an analysis of her writing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but the voyeurism inherent within a biography was lacking. Here Hardwick is difficult to know amid the other stars of her intellectual circle. Hermione Lee would have done Hardwick better.
August 12, 2024
This biography was much too linear - a year by year recap of what Elizabeth Hardwick wrote and where she was living. I think the abundance of quotes from her letters served to illustrate her intelligence and personality, but that method did seem like a bit of a hitch that Curtis used whereby she did not have to do a lot of analysis of her subject. I did enjoy however the prominence of her and Mary McCarthy’s correspondence (and friendship) in the book. The retelling of the Robert Lowell years was truly awful (for Hardwick; not Curtis’s writing). The best part of the book in my opinion is in the Literary Splash chapter. Curtis manages to get quotes of (now well known) women writers who had been Elizabeth’s writing students at Barnard - Mona Simpson, Susan Minot, Daphne Merkin, Mary Gordon and Elizabeth Benedict - their memories of her personality and teaching style were so vivid that it added a needed punch to the linear (aka boring) rehashing of Elizabeth’s publication history.
Was moved to read this after reading Darryl Pinckney’s memoir about his friendship with Hardwick; that book - while written in almost a stream of consciousness style - at times I think better communicates something about Hardwick’s essence than Curtis’s book does.
Definitely planning to re-read Sleepless Nights at some point!
Was moved to read this after reading Darryl Pinckney’s memoir about his friendship with Hardwick; that book - while written in almost a stream of consciousness style - at times I think better communicates something about Hardwick’s essence than Curtis’s book does.
Definitely planning to re-read Sleepless Nights at some point!
October 20, 2021
This book is about Elizabeth Hardwick's life but includes what seems to be an exhaustive review of her writing as well. Some of the literary review was used to flesh out Elizabeth's life experiences, since she drew from them in her writing. Cathy Curtis relied heavily on direct quotes from various letters. The direct quotations could be distracting at times, although I could see a lot of research went in to the writing of this book.
There were interesting sections, including her views on second wave feminism and the treatment of female literary characters.
The shift in Elizabeth's attitude toward life was interesting as well. She was cynical, even caustic, before she married. After several horribly difficult years with an unfaithful and mentally ill man, she was much more likely to show appreciation for simple things. Her kindness toward her ex-husband was touching.
Overall, though, I feel the book collapsed under the weight of minute detail. Hard-core Elizabeth Hardwick fans may appreciate the thorough coverage, but I felt the book was way too long.
I was given an ARC by #NetGalley
There were interesting sections, including her views on second wave feminism and the treatment of female literary characters.
The shift in Elizabeth's attitude toward life was interesting as well. She was cynical, even caustic, before she married. After several horribly difficult years with an unfaithful and mentally ill man, she was much more likely to show appreciation for simple things. Her kindness toward her ex-husband was touching.
Overall, though, I feel the book collapsed under the weight of minute detail. Hard-core Elizabeth Hardwick fans may appreciate the thorough coverage, but I felt the book was way too long.
I was given an ARC by #NetGalley
February 27, 2022
This biography of Kentucky-born New York writer Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007) was more frustrating than enlightening. Author Cathy Curtis didn't provide enough about Hardwick's formative years for me to develop a theory about why she was the way she was, and didn't provide any analysis of her work. The book was a collection of lively quotes from Hardwick as well as from many others in her world, but they didn't help me understand her at all.
When I compare biographies of her husband's poet pal Elizabeth Bishop and his sometime friend Flannery O'Connor, I felt I was provided with enough material to sort of understand those writers. I like to be able to form a theory. Although it may not be the right theory, I don't care. It helps me. But I don't even have a theory about the big question -- why Hardwick stayed so many years with her abusive manic-depressive husband. I understand that she herself maintained that poet Robert Lowell was delightful and brilliant when not sick, but there has to be more to the story than that.
I was just appalled that this brilliant, accomplished woman would write to Lowell after one of his endless infidelities and violent breakdowns, that she would make a "superhuman effort to improve as a wife so that your home and daily life won’t make you sick again"!
This is a woman so exceptional that, for example, one time when she "promised to write a piece on Thomas Mann, she galloped through *The Magic Mountain,* *Buddenbrooks,* and *Dr Faustus,* ‘most of the new and old letters, the little books coming out now’—all in just a few days," according to Curtis. (It took me months to read the first of those, and I still don't understand it.)
Apart from the lack of insight into Hardwick's history, the way Curtis explains her writing is to state the obvious. She mentions that Hardwick wrote that “courage under ill-treatment is a woman’s theme” and then opines sagely, “of course, it is very much her theme.” Duh.
Curtis notes that Hardwick actually didn't think much of biographers herself. She criticized how beside the point is biographers’ scrupulous accounting “of their subjects’ activities from year to year” -- Curtis's approach. She believes that there should be “some equity between the subject and the author. And serious, incomparable reflection," but, alas, "nothing is weighed or judged or pondered.”
I hope someone else will write a deeper study of Elizabeth Hardwick, whose partly autobiographical novel *Sleepless Nights* utterly dazzled me.
When I compare biographies of her husband's poet pal Elizabeth Bishop and his sometime friend Flannery O'Connor, I felt I was provided with enough material to sort of understand those writers. I like to be able to form a theory. Although it may not be the right theory, I don't care. It helps me. But I don't even have a theory about the big question -- why Hardwick stayed so many years with her abusive manic-depressive husband. I understand that she herself maintained that poet Robert Lowell was delightful and brilliant when not sick, but there has to be more to the story than that.
I was just appalled that this brilliant, accomplished woman would write to Lowell after one of his endless infidelities and violent breakdowns, that she would make a "superhuman effort to improve as a wife so that your home and daily life won’t make you sick again"!
This is a woman so exceptional that, for example, one time when she "promised to write a piece on Thomas Mann, she galloped through *The Magic Mountain,* *Buddenbrooks,* and *Dr Faustus,* ‘most of the new and old letters, the little books coming out now’—all in just a few days," according to Curtis. (It took me months to read the first of those, and I still don't understand it.)
Apart from the lack of insight into Hardwick's history, the way Curtis explains her writing is to state the obvious. She mentions that Hardwick wrote that “courage under ill-treatment is a woman’s theme” and then opines sagely, “of course, it is very much her theme.” Duh.
Curtis notes that Hardwick actually didn't think much of biographers herself. She criticized how beside the point is biographers’ scrupulous accounting “of their subjects’ activities from year to year” -- Curtis's approach. She believes that there should be “some equity between the subject and the author. And serious, incomparable reflection," but, alas, "nothing is weighed or judged or pondered.”
I hope someone else will write a deeper study of Elizabeth Hardwick, whose partly autobiographical novel *Sleepless Nights* utterly dazzled me.
December 10, 2021
I think I am rating this book this high because I happen to be interested in two recurring themes: close analysis of the process of writing and dealing with bipolar disorder in a person close to you. Many people will not find these topics as relevant, so this book may not be for them.
The writing process description is made up of extensive quotes from Hardwick's letters, references to her life, and literary analysis. If you are a writer, especially if you mostly write nonfiction but aspire to fiction, you may find this fascinating.
But the real heart of the book is Hardwick's process of dealing with husband Robert Lowell's bipolar disorder. The poet Lowell had manic phases where he drank heavily and had serial obsessions with other women. Hardwick morphed from trying to reason with or change him to realizing his talent made it worth taking care of him. But the getting from here to there is detailed in letters and through explanations of incidents (showing not telling). If you have a bipolar friend who has been though some tough manic phrases, you know that it is hard to find helpful anecdotal evidence to guide you as to what to do for them. Hardwick lived a decades-long experiment in caring for a bipolar person.
The writing process description is made up of extensive quotes from Hardwick's letters, references to her life, and literary analysis. If you are a writer, especially if you mostly write nonfiction but aspire to fiction, you may find this fascinating.
But the real heart of the book is Hardwick's process of dealing with husband Robert Lowell's bipolar disorder. The poet Lowell had manic phases where he drank heavily and had serial obsessions with other women. Hardwick morphed from trying to reason with or change him to realizing his talent made it worth taking care of him. But the getting from here to there is detailed in letters and through explanations of incidents (showing not telling). If you have a bipolar friend who has been though some tough manic phrases, you know that it is hard to find helpful anecdotal evidence to guide you as to what to do for them. Hardwick lived a decades-long experiment in caring for a bipolar person.
August 25, 2023
A biography of a woman, who, together with Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag and Hannah Arendt, has to be counted as one of the more formidable intelligences of the New York literary life in the 1970s. Best known as one of the founders of the New York Review of Books, and as Robert Lowell's long-suffering second wife, she was an acerbic literary critic and essayist in her now right, with an occasional foray into short stories.
This biography is very respectful and admiring, but ultimately not very illuminating. Most of the content is derived from letters from and to Elizabeth Hardwick, and quotes from her stories and essays. Inevitably, a good chunk of the book is about the peripatetic lives of the Hardwick- Lowell couple, including the many manic episodes that landed the husband in mental institutions while the wife tried to help and support him. In the end, I didn't learn much more about Elizabeth Hardwick's thoughts about literature.
This biography is very respectful and admiring, but ultimately not very illuminating. Most of the content is derived from letters from and to Elizabeth Hardwick, and quotes from her stories and essays. Inevitably, a good chunk of the book is about the peripatetic lives of the Hardwick- Lowell couple, including the many manic episodes that landed the husband in mental institutions while the wife tried to help and support him. In the end, I didn't learn much more about Elizabeth Hardwick's thoughts about literature.
March 5, 2022
Not only does Cathy Curtis sensitively navigate writing the biography of a woman who is often overwhelmingly obscured by the shadow of her husband, she also undertakes the work of detailing the life of someone so sharp so honest so precise…who was very skeptical of the work of biography. Although there likely could have been even less mentions of her husband, Elizabeth Hardwick felt fully formed and alive in this text. In some ways it mimics Hardwick’s approach to her biography of Melville: writing of life but also writing, as someone so concerned with writing as contribution to literature as opposed to writing as practice, this biography mimics Hardwicks concerns. It also is a delight to see the acknowledgments begin with thanks to librarians and archivists.
September 8, 2022
I didn't think this, the first biography of Elizabeth Hardwick, did justice to her as the formidable member of the intellectual elite and brilliant essayist and critic she was. Too much of the narrative is overshadowed and overburdened by her admittedly high-profile marriage to Robert Lowell, to the extent that apart from the final chapter, it was impossible to distinguish her life as a woman from her life as his wife. Given her own acidic views on the biography as a form - “The bland, insistent recording of the insignificant, respectful, worshipful as it is, cannot honor a human being and it is particularly useless in the case of a writer—outstandingly inappropriate." I imagine she'd be disappointed in this one.
November 3, 2021
engaging and careful and with the right touch of humor; the great irony of elizabeth hardwick's life, one not missed by her biographer, seems to be that she managed to be a splendid intelligence, in spite of -- an recalcitrant (insane) husband, constant financial worry, and a brilliant but constantly over-shadowed career.
the biographer does really good archival work, picks the right quotes, reads the work with a good mind for the gossip.
the biographer does really good archival work, picks the right quotes, reads the work with a good mind for the gossip.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews